


Follow The Chaos

by Samunderthelights



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Don't copy to another site, Gen, Halloween, Halloween Challenge, I Don't Even Know, Mentions Of The Doctor - Freeform, My First Work in This Fandom, One Shot, Torchwood Halloween Fest 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-13
Updated: 2020-10-13
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:54:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26988580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Samunderthelights/pseuds/Samunderthelights
Summary: It's Halloween, and Gwen can't wait to get home to go trick or treating with Rhys and the kids. But when a creature starts causing chaos all over the city, she knows she won't be going home any time soon.--Torchwood Halloween Fest 2020 - Halloween celebrations & Creatures
Kudos: 7
Collections: Torchwood Fan Fests: Halloween Fest 2020





	Follow The Chaos

**Author's Note:**

> Hi!  
> I have to admit that I haven't seen any Torchwood episodes since Miracle Day. So that's been almost 10 years of no Torchwood. Which reminds me that I really need to rewatch it, and I did NOT realise that it's been 10 years already! But yeah, it's been a long time, so I do apologise if I got the characteristics a little wrong, or whatever. If I had found out about this Halloween Fest sooner, I definitely would have rewatched some episodes, but there's not a whole lot of time left now, and I didn't want to let this Fest go by, so this will have to do for now. 😉  
> So yeah, my first attempt at a Torchwood story (I am choosing to ignore my first attempt from 10 years ago, because that was a mess). And hopefully more will follow!  
> Also, Children of Earth and Miracle Day never happened, and it's 2020 and they are still working together as a team of three. Or so I decided for this story anyway. 😉  
> Enjoy!  
> Xx

Gwen has just put on her jacket, ready to go home, when Jack comes down the stairs, a focused look on his face, tablet in hand.

“Where do you think you’re going?” he asks, not even taking his eyes off the tablet.

Gwen looks around, not sure if he is talking to her or not, but when he finally looks up, raising an eyebrow, she sighs.

“Home. It’s Halloween… I’m supposed to go trick or treating with Rhys and the kids…”

“Call him and tell him you’ll be home late,” Jack says, and before Gwen can object, he walks off to go and find Ianto.

Gwen considers sneaking off and dealing with the consequences in the morning, but she knows that Jack wouldn’t make her stay late unless he has a good reason. So she sends her husband a text, not wanting to hear the disappointment in his voice, before going after Jack.

“What are we dealing with?” she asks, Jack showing Ianto the tablet. “Can I still make it home in time to take the kids trick or treating?”

“I doubt it,” Jack says. “The Doctor has been tracking these guys ever since they went off the radar after they caused trouble in Scotland last month,” he explains, Ianto scrolling through the file, a troubled look on his face. “She lost track of them last week, but they popped up again this afternoon.”

“Wait, if The Doctor was tracking them, then why can’t she deal with them?” Gwen asks. “What kind of trouble are we talking about anyway? If they popped up here this afternoon, wouldn’t we have heard about it?”

“These creatures feed off chaos,” Jack explains.

“You think the big fire this afternoon was their work?” Ianto asks, finally looking up at him. “If they feed off chaos, what are they doing in Cardiff? Wouldn't they want to go to London, or…?”

“What? Halloween in Cardiff?” Gwen laughs. “I’d say there’s enough chaos to feed the lot of them. So you’re thinking they’re about to cause some serious trouble tonight?”

“The Doctor seems to think so.” Jack nods.

“What is it that they do exactly?” Ianto asks. “They feed off chaos, but is it chaos that is already there, or do they actually cause it? And if so, what do they do? Should we be worried they can get to us?”

“Back in Scotland odd things started happening, elderly neighbors who had been friends for years started attacking each other, people who had never gotten into trouble before set fires to their homes… all incidents were small enough for police to write them off as nothing out of the ordinary, but if you put them all together, it was obvious that these guys were doing something to these people.”

“But we don’t know how they are doing it?”

“The Doctor seems to think they only have to be near you for you to be affected by them.”

“How do we know this wasn’t just some idiot putting something in the water?” Gwen asks. “Do we know this is even something alien?”

Ianto hands her the tablet, and when she sees the blurry photo, the face, or what she assumes is a face, she quickly hands it back to him.

“Oh, God. Yes, that is definitely ehm… that’s not human.”

“No, it’s not,” Jack agrees. “They can disguise themselves as human though.”

“So we don’t know what they look like, we don’t know what they’re planning on doing, or how, yet we are somehow supposed to stop them?”

“Pretty much,” Ianto says.

“And how exactly are we supposed to do this?”

“Follow the chaos.”

* * *

Gwen is cold, annoyed, hungry, her stomach grumbling, and she is pretty sure that if Jack tells her one more time that this is definitely not a waste of time, she will punch him in the face.

“It’s been hours, Jack,” she tries, “Nothing is going on. Maybe The Doctor was wrong. Maybe the fire was just a fire, and…”

Before she can finish her sentence, a young boy dressed as a scientist walks by, spouting out words she has never even heard of. But that’s nothing weird, is it? Maybe he’s just a really big science fan, and he is simply repeating what he has read somewhere.

But when a girl runs by, dressed as a cat, her ears and tail looking just a little too realistic, she sighs.

“Fine. So maybe you were right.”

“If you feel like something is happening to you, tell me,” Jack says, before going into the direction off the busy street where a lot of kids are running around. They had obviously been trick or treating, but they are now running around, their parents or minders trying to either catch them or drag them off home.

It takes a moment for the team to understand what must have happened, but when they see a young boy clinging onto another boy, his fangs buried deep into his neck, it quickly dawns on them. And when he looks up, blood pouring from his mouth, his red eyes gleaming in the moonlight, Gwen flinches.

“Oh, God. I’m going to be sick,” she mutters. “They made them…”

“Into whatever they were dressed up as,” Ianto finishes her sentence, jumping out of the way to avoid a boy with a superhero costume. “Any idea on how to fix this?”

“Yes. We catch these sons of bitches,” Jack spits out, trying his best to keep a straight face, but both Gwen and Ianto can see that he blames himself for this. If only they had caught them sooner, then these kids wouldn’t have been affected.

“What happened to the people in Scotland?” Gwen hesitantly asks. “Did the effect wear off, or…?”

“It did.” Jack nods, as they walk away from the scene of chaos, wanting nothing more than to help these kids, but knowing that the best they can do is find whoever did this to them. “These guys got what they needed, and they moved on.”

“So that little boy that was bitten…”

“I don’t know,” Jack admits. “So, do any of you have any idea where they could be off to next? Any places where a lot of people are…”

“I do,” Ianto interrupts him, the colour draining from his face. “This guy handed me an invitation to this party the other day, but…”

“What guy?”

“Really, Jack? You think this is the time to get jealous?” Gwen snaps. “What party?”

“A costume party… for adults,” Ianto says. “The theme was monsters. Vampires, zombies, that kind of thing… do you think they’ll do what they did to those kids to them too?”

“So we could be dealing with a city full of zombies and vampires?” Gwen asks. “That’s just brilliant. I really bloody hate…”

“Gwen?” Rhys asks, and they all look up, only to find him standing there, his and Gwen’s son and daughter standing next to him in their costumes. “What are you doing here? I thought you had to work late?”

“We are… working, I mean,” Gwen quickly says. “What are you doing out here?”

“Taking the kids trick or treating. Are you sure you can’t talk to Jack and ask him…”

“Go home, please,” Gwen says. “It’s not safe out here.”

“What are you talking about? I’m not letting the kids out of my sight.”

“Rhys, go home!” Gwen warns him, her kids looking up at her with disappointed faces. “I promise I’ll explain it to you later. But I can’t do this right now.”

Rhys sighs, but he knows that she wouldn’t warn him unless it’s serious, so he takes his kids’ hands, and leads them back home.

“Let’s find these bastards!” Gwen spits out, a new fire lit inside of her now that she knows how close her own family had come to getting involved in this.

They go to the location of the party, coming across several car accidents and people arguing along the way. But it isn’t until they get to the party, that it becomes clear just how big this is.

Even before they go in, they can hear the yelling and screaming. So they run in, trying to avoid the vampires, the zombies, the murderous clowns… but one of them sets their sights on Ianto, and it isn’t until the clown throws his axe at him, that he can feel the fear, the chaos set in.

Gwen runs over to Ianto, who is lying on the floor, hands clutched to his chest, blood pouring from a deep wound. She tries to put pressure on it, but she can feel two arms pulling her away from him, and as much as she tries to fight against whoever is holding her, she isn’t strong enough.

“See her?” she hears, Jack’s voice taking her out of her panic, as he points out a little girl standing in the middle of the dancefloor, a big, satisfied grin on her face. She is dressed up as a doll, the kind that makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, and it sets all of Gwen’s senses on edge.

“You think she did this?”

“We have to get her,” Jack says, glancing over to Ianto, who is still clutching the wound on his chest. “If she did this, she’ll know how to reverse it.”

“And Ianto?”

“We need her to save him,” Jack says, and as much as it both pains them to leave him, they know they have no other choice. So they run through the bloody and murderous chaos, hoping to blend in, as they make their way over to the girl.

But by the time they reach her, she has disappeared. The backdoor is open though, so Gwen and Jack quickly follow, and they find her, very calmly, walking off.

“We know who you are,” Jack says, and when the girl turns around, she is still grinning.

“Oh, yes? Then I suppose you know what I can do to you? What I can make you do with those guns?”

Gwen can’t help but wonder why they weren’t affected by the chaos inside, but she doesn’t have too long to think about it. Because what if the girl sets her sights on them now? What if she makes them turn on each other?

“You know your little act won’t work on us,” Jack says. “We can see right through it.”

“Is that so?” the girl grins. “Want to test that theory?”

“How about we make a deal?”

“What are you doing?” Gwen whispers. “You can’t let her go.”

Jack shoots her a warning look, before turning his focus back to the girl.

“How about you reverse everything you have done here, and we’ll let you walk?”

“You’re not going to let me walk,” the girl laughs. “You have no clue what happened tonight, do you?”

“Last chance. If you don’t go back in there, and…”

The little girl looks back at the building, and she shrugs, the yelling and screaming immediately stopping.

“Humans are such bores,” the girl says. “Won’t even let me have a little fun on Halloween.”

She pouts, now looking like something out of a horror movie, more than anything. Gwen tries hard to resist the urge to run, because she has always hated those old, creepy dolls, and having this girl looking, even sounding like one? A nightmare coming to life.

“So… catch me if you can?” the girl laughs, and before either Jack or Gwen can make a move, she has disappeared.

“What just…”

“Should we go after her?” Gwen asks.

“Where?” Jack spits out. “Shit!”

They run back into the building, ready to deal with whatever it is that they are about to walk into, but what they find is a party, nothing more, nothing less. No real blood, no death. Ianto making his way over to them, looking a little dazed.

“What happened?”

“She took it all back?” Gwen asks, looking up at Jack. “Was it even real to begin with? Are you hurt?” she asks, putting her hand on Ianto’s chest. “How are you feeling?”

“Confused, mostly,” Ianto chuckles. “I remember going inside, and then… nothing.”

“Wait, so then…,” Gwen begins, but she has no idea what has just happened. “Jack?”

“We should go check to see if those kids are okay,” Jack says, feeling just as confused as the others.

“So why didn’t it affect us?” Gwen asks, as they make their way over to the street where they had left the affected kids. “Because we weren’t wearing a costume? I thought you said it was enough to be near her. She was just a few feet away from us, so why…”

“Maybe because we knew who she was,” Jack suggests. “Maybe that’s why her illusion didn’t have an effect on us?”

“Then what about Ianto? He knew who she was?”

“I have no idea,” Jack admits. “I wish I did, so we’d know what to do next time she pops up again. But I don’t know.”

“What are you going to tell The Doctor?”

“That we failed. We let her go.”

“I wouldn’t say we failed,” Gwen quickly says. “I mean… we got her to reverse all the chaos she caused, didn’t we? I’d say that’s pretty good.”

“No one died,” Ianto adds, but Jack doesn’t seem convinced, not even when they find the street busy with kids trick or treating, most wearing makeshift costumes. No one is hurt, no one is panicked. They are all having a great time, and none of them seem to remember what had happened.

* * *

Gwen has just sent Rhys a text to let him know she is on her way home, when she looks up, and she finds Jack and Ianto standing there, their arms wrapped tightly around each other. Jack had tried to hide it, but watching Ianto get hurt, even it if was an illusion, it had hurt him deeply. So she watches them for a moment, still remembering how she had gotten to witness their relationship develop over the years, how she had been there when they had made it official. And when they finally let go of each other and look down, she flashes a smile and gives them a wave, before putting her jacket back on, ready to go home and settle down on the couch with Rhys and the kids.

**Author's Note:**

> https://samunderthelights.tumblr.com/


End file.
